


Empty Symbols

by handlewithkara



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Angst, Arguing, F/M, Hugs, suitfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-03 01:34:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13330683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handlewithkara/pseuds/handlewithkara
Summary: After seeing Mon-El's Legion suit, Kara confronts Mon-El about one particular part of it.





	Empty Symbols

**Author's Note:**

> This is just a little one shot inspired by the promo for 3x10 and the pictures of Mon-El's suit.

Wetness. Water? The hard ground under her knees. Shards of something next to her knuckles. Kara gasped and clawed at her forehead.

“It is not advisable...”

Kara pushed away a blue hand and whirled around. “Back off.” The medical device that had been on her face scattered across the floor with an unpleasant metallic clank.

“Kara...” J’onn’s familiar tone make her jerk upward. The ship. She was on the Legion ship. J’onn … J’onn was here.

“What are they doing here? What did they do to me? Where is Reign?” Her voice trembled even as she was yelling. J’onn raised his palms defensively.

“They were trying to help you. Reign…”

“I remember! I don’t want their help!” she hissed between gritted teeth. The world turned into a blur as she spun around, dispersing water droplets around her. Better. Dry again. “Where is she, I have to go after her! Where is Reign?”

J’onn reached for his communication device. “She’s awake.”

“Thank god! Kara is awake!” Alex exclaimed on the other end of the line. Who was she talking to?

J’onn started to explain. “Alex and the Legion tried to stop Reign. She...”

“They what?”

Before Kara could say another thing, Alex rushed into the room and pulled her into a big hug. “Kara, I’m so glad you are alright. I… I was so worried.” Kara closed her eyes and hugged her sister back. Trying hard to block out the memory of the sinking cold she had felt when meeting Reign.

“It’s okay, you know,” she tried to calm her sister. “I’m always gonna be okay. Unbreakable, right.” Kara opened her eyes.

Them.

Like an electric jolt to her soul.

They had to have come in right behind Alex. Kara felt the anger rising in her belly. Them, with their concerned looks, their ridiculously perfect faces and now even in matching uniforms. She gently pushed her sister aside and zeroed in on Mon-El.

“You! How dare you! You had no right!” Kara stabbed her finger against his chest.

“Kara...” Alex attempted to interject.

“Reign is my business! This is my city! My world!”

“Kara, stop, we asked them to help.”

“Well, maybe you should have asked me!” Kara yelled, not once taking her eyes off Mon-El. She hated him. She hated his stupid suit. She hated how calm he always was, ever since her had returned. She hated that it felt like he was here and not here at the same time. She hated that he was here in the same space as she was.

“Kara, please, you were out of commission, we didn’t know what to do.”

Tears were burning in Kara’s eyes, but she refused to wipe them away. She couldn’t quite bring herself to face her sister. “You should have waited. I would have come out on my own,” she said icily. Her eyes wandered back up to Mon-El’s face again. “Was that your idea? To saddle me with that blue creep?”

“Querl is a restoration specialist. He was only trying to help.”

“I was doing fine!”

It was a lie and she knew it.

For a second anger flashed up in his eyes. “No, you weren’t. And you won’t be if you keep underestimating Reign.”

“So that’s how it gonna be, huh?” Kara throw her hands up in the air, mockingly. “You just waltz back into the D.E.O. and make all the decisions for me? I can handle it. Without you. Without any of you!”

Alex grabbed her shoulder from behind. “Kara, you have to rest. You’re still recovering. The sunlight chamber … “

Against her dearest will, Kara could feel her knees shaking.

“No! Leave me alone, all of you. I’m going home!”

***

Kara jerked up in her bed. Sometimes her perfect memory was a curse. She hadn’t looked. She hadn’t meant to look. She had refused to look. Yet now in her sleep her mind had replayed the image for her.

The suit. Styled almost more like a military uniform. Darkish blue.

Her finger, tipping against his chest, right where the glyph was.

No.

Where no glyph was.

Where a glyph was supposed to go. Fine red stitching forming the shape of a crest.

It made no sense. Daxamite houses didn’t have crests. At least not in that shape.

Kara swallowed hard.

She had to know.

***

Nobody stopped her. A short nod to the agent on the night shift before she stepped through the portal. Mon-El’s futristic ship greeted her in all its pristine and cold glory, the lights dimmed during the night.

Kara switched on her x-ray vision and scanned the ship.

There. That had to be it. Careful not to make a sound she hovered towards the room on the back of the ship where an innocuous looking wall hid what had to be a range of lockers.

That one.

That had to be the one.

With one more peer inside she confirmed her guess. There was something inside, next to two books and some clothes. Something with the right shape.

The locker’s pale white surface felt smooth underneath her finger tips. There was no locking mechanism on the outside, only a small electronic counterpart on the inside, likely to be opened through the proximity of the owner’s activator. A short sear from her eyes. Done.

Kara punched her finger through the newly created hole and pulled the locker door out of the wall. She reached inside.

It wasn’t cold and not smooth either. The material similar, but different from what her suit was made of. She took it out and ran her finger along the familiar shape. A quick focus down to the molecular level. An unknown elements, different shapes and connections. Durable, but able to bend.

There were markings on it and a long, cruel gash through the middle. It had been cleaned recently.

A subtle cough sounded behind her and she whirled around, instinctively clutching the sigil to her chest. Mon-El was leaning casually against the door frame. He pointed at the watch like small black band on his wrist.

“All of them are connected to a personal alarm. Querl installed it to stop … to stop somebody from always pranking him. “

She stared at him wordlessly. Mon-El disengaged from the door and stepped closer, tentatively reaching for the glyph in her hand. He ran his finger over it, his eyes following its path. He cleared his throat.

“I … I shouldn’t have taken it. Not without your permission. It’s your sigil. Your house. I had no right to use it. I realized that, that’s why I took it off.”

Why?

Why would you wear it?

Why did you hide it?

Her hands were shaking.

“Do you still love me?” she blurted out.

His face snapped upwards and he held her gaze. “Of course,” he said, his voice raspy, pained and lost.

Tears welled up in Kara’s eyes. “But not in any way that matters.”

“Kara,” he whispered, his hand trembling close to her hair, wanting to touch, but not quite daring. “It will always matter. Always. It matters more than I could ever tell you.”

With one hand she captured his and pulled it closer to her her, closer to her heart. Not unlike … when she had had to say goodbye to him.

“I don’t understand this,” she whispered. “Why is this? All of this. Why is it like this? The necklace, the crest, Imra...”

“I’m so sorry, Kara.”

“I don’t want this. I want ...”

He grabbed the glyph from her hand and placed it inside the destroyed, smoking locker, pushing it down below the books. “I overstepped,” he said tonelessly. “I apologized. You have a right to be angry.”

“Why won’t you look me in the eye, Mon-El?” His back straightened. Kara didn’t know whether she wanted to punch him or hug him from behind. She threw her arms around him and pressed her cheek against his back. Synthetic, hard. Selected to protect and withstand. So different from the soft sweaters and shirts he used to wear, or even from the familiar scratch of his DEO uniform. Her hands clasped each other across his chest and then his hand came to join and cover them.

“Mon-El, please.”

She felt him wobble, sway inside her embrace. “What do you want me to say? That I was lonely? That I missed you? That I felt like my soul had been ripped out of my chest.”

Kara’s hand traveled upwards, to find the wetness on his cheek.

“What changed? I need to know the truth.”

She braced herself. Seven years. That had to be it. Those cruel words. Ready to slap her down and bring her down to reality. She hated them so much.

But they never came.

“Kara, we can’t do this. I can’t stay.” Mon-El turned around. His uniform might have looked bulky and uninviting but Kara found it effortlessly easy to find a spot to nestle against his chest. She traced the fine, red stitching that formed the outline of the unused crest.

Do you feel empty inside? she wondered. Is that’s why it looks like that?

Mon-El grabbed her hand. “Kara, look at me. You have to focus on Reign. She hurt you. She’s dangerous. She came so much closer than you...”

Red lights began to flash. They froze, their hands still interlocked.

“It’s Reign. They found her again.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a native speaker and I have no beta reader :(


End file.
